There Is No Cat - I'm always throwing hack weight

Hollering into the void since 2002

Sunday, February 28, 2010

I'm always throwing hack weight

I didn't get to watch as much curling this year as I did during the last Winter Olympics, but I still got to see a fair amount, including the championship games for both the men and women. I used to watch curling on TV when I was growing up in Detroit, because the Canadian TV station across the river in Windsor used to air it often. I think it appealed to my sense of the absurd, with the sweeping in particular looking profoundly silly. But seeing it as an adult, I can definitely see the subtlties that evaded me when I was a kid. And I love a sport where some of the best athletes are in the forties. Kevin Martin, the Canadian men's skip, and Cheryl Bernard, the Canadian women's skip, are both 43; Carolyn Darbyshire of the Canadian team is 46. It's a pity we won't be seeing any more curling here in the U.S. until the next Winter Olympics, because I genuinely enjoy watching it. Then again, maybe we're better off not having it on TV here; NBC's host last night joked that NBC stood for "Nothing But Curling", but it was more like "Nothing But Commercials". It felt like we were only getting to watch half of the spiel.

In honor of the just-completed Olympic curling competition, here's my favorite curling-as-metaphor-for-failing-romance song, Tournament of Hearts by the Weakerthans.

Tags: olympics weakerthans curling

Posted at 4:39 AM

Comments

Ralph, isn't that the *only* curling-as-metaphor-for-failing-romance song? (Not that that makes it bad, but if there are others I definitely want to know about it.)

Posted by pjm at 11:29 AM, February 28, 2010 [Link]

Well, there is the song that the Swedish women's curling team did a video for four years ago, "Hearts on Fire" by Hammerfall. I haven't listened to it closely enough to tell; maybe it's about failing romance? It's pretty bad, though, so the Weakerthans win by default.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL9mlqbG5CU

Then, of course, the Beatles curled in Help!, but they didn't sing about it. Missed opportunity.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd2VKB7GrH4

There are some pretty frightening things on YouTube if you search for curling:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eao-K9RVSGo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS6OEaROSaY&NR=1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=torgzY5cRCU

I rest my case.

Posted by ralph at 8:43 PM, February 28, 2010 [Link]

The Hearts and the Brier aren't on CBC anymore -- TSN acquired the rights -- so we don't get any Canadian curling on Seattle TV anymore. Makes me sad.

Posted by dw at 4:16 PM, March 1, 2010 [Link]

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"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

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